Lands
by Rinakko
Summary: " dance with tomorrow and play with today, but never let yesterday catch up with you. " / the ninja should be more careful of what they wish for. garmadon should be careful of what he wishes for. everyone does, but nobody does as well.
1. Above

**_I guess this is just bingewriting, because I have nothing better to do than this and I was pretty inspired, so here's a mini-saga._**

**_Enjoy, and please R&R for me if/so I can continue._**

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><p><em>The girl's figure is just silhouetted against the dying sunset, and her hair blows in the light breeze that carries around the place Kai stands at. His feet crunch through rubble as he walks cautiously towards her, through a broken city with shattered walls and buried sins. Clouds whip across the sky above his head, carried by the wind that is slowly picking up.<em>

_For just a moment, Kai sees her from a different place. He stands on empty space in front of her, seeing her lips part slightly and her distant eyes look at him for the briefest moment before she looks away, as if he was invisible. He looks over the girl's shoulder, to see a city with high walls built in the hills and in that moment, he watches a plume of fire explode from the hills. He watches the walls crumble, shattering, falling down around the city. Long fingers of fire wave at him from above, and great clouds of smoke and fire form above._

_The girl turns around, and he sees the side of her face as she watches the city - for some reason, Kai knows it's her city, and he watches her as she watches her city burn and fall and he watches her scream, mouth wide-open and tears slowly rolling down her face and he just stands there and watches her scream as she watches her life crumble into ash and fire and scorched flesh, burned bones and soot and wisps of smoke that fall and rise, driftingdriftingdrifting away._

_And it rains._

Kai wakes with a start, a gasp escaping from his lips. He looks up towards the window to see it's still night, the stars glimmering coldly in the misty night sky. He sits up, breathing heavily.

"Kai, are you okay?" He jumps a little, before he looks up to see Cole gazing down at him from the top bunk. Cole's originally silvery-grey eyes reflect the night in a shade of velvet indigo so dark it could be black, but they are as soft and considering as a summery evening. He pauses. His dream isn't important. Kai sighs as he flops back onto his pillows.

"Thanks, Cole. I'm okay." He rolls over, and as he pulls the blankets over his head he hears Cole one last time before he, too rolls over to sleep more.

"Nothing else in this world, Kai."

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><p>Morning comes too soon for Kai. He stumbles up out of bed when the ancient alarm clock rings, grumbling and moaning; night was not kind to the fire ninja. Kai's dreams were plagued by screams and dark shapes of rushing people, but every time when he thinks he's escaped Kai sees the girl again, her lips slightly parted as her eyes stare in the distance. Sometimes her lips move, but Kai is always too far away to hear her. Every time, he runs towards her. She holds the answers, but fate dangles them temptingly in front of Kai's face and he can't reach them. When he is just feet away, separated by only screens of smoke and dust, she turns to look at him. Her irises are pure black, just like her pupils and as he comes closer to look he realizes there's no white of her eyes; it's all just black and pupil unlike his fiery amber eyes or Lloyd's green or Cole's ever-changing silvery-grey. It's not like Zane's crystalline blue or Jay's sapphire orbs, not like Nya's warm brown or Sensei's liquid golden like light itself.<p>

Her eyes are completely black, and as he realizes the sky comes falling down on them and it starts all over.

A hand on his shoulder startles him and he turns to see Zane looking at him in concern. "Brother, are you okay?" He asks quietly. They sit next to each other at the dining table, Zane surveying Kai with worried eyes. Kai pauses. He knows that Zane would be the most likely to understand, so he tells Zane. He tells Zane everything about his dream - everything that he can remember, at least - he tells him about the strange girl and the crumbling city, the blood and the screams and the people, and Zane listens. He tells him everything he knows except for the girl's strange eyes and her eerie gaze that dances in the recesses of his mind even then. Zane listens to it all, and as Kai finishes Zane opens his mouth to speak.

He never gets the chance, though.

The entire table has fallen deathly silent and they all look at Kai like he's a ghost, and that's when Kai realizes he has talked louder than he meant to. Everyone just stares at Kai as if they're waiting for him to talk again. It is silent until one of them bursts out with speech and they all start talking, an explosion of babble and talk all directed at him. They all asks him what it means or who she is like he knows. The red ninja's temper threatens to well to the surface, and it does when he slams his palms onto the table and yells _"QUIET_!_" _so loudly that his voice drowns out all the others and they look at him expectantly.

All Kai does is bury his face in his hands and mumble "I need to think," before rising and exiting he room. After a brief pause, Sensei gets up and follows him.

A door slams somewhere on the Bounty and they know it is Kai, and they hear Sensei open that same door. They hear yelling before it quiets down, and for a long time there is silence in the dining room until Jay clears his throat. "Uh, guys," He says quietly, (which is very different from his regular way of talking) fidgeting with the sleeves of his blue gi. "I hate to break it, but we can't sit around the table all day. We still have to train Lloyd, and ... Nya and I have something to do together." Everyone looks at him; it's usually Cole or Sensei who reminds them of their responsibilities. Lucky for Jay, Nya's brother (namely Kai) wasn't in the room.

After another long moment of silence Cole clears his throat. "Okay," He tells Jay. "You go ahead. Zane and I will train Lloyd today."

Jay nods and Nya smiles hesitantly. "Jay," She asks, turning to her boyfriend. "I want to check on Kai before we leave." The blue ninja nods, giving her a light smile.  
>Nya nods back, leaving the room for somewhere she knew her brother would be.<p>

"Nya," He says when she pushes the door open to the training room, where he is pummeling a punching bag. But instead of answering, she gasps and her hand flies up to her forehead, and Nya slides to the ground in a haze of pain and vision. Inches before the floor Kai catches his sister. "Nya, can you hear me?"

She tries to respond, but her lips refuse to part and her eyes refuse to stay open as she is plunged into another world of blood and fire.

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><p><em><strong>Ooh, early cliffie.<strong>_

_**Well, please R&R if you think I should continue.**_

_**And nO, this story does not mainly revolve around Kai. **_


	2. Cities

**_Um, back & better with another chapter of this, which I need to find a betareader for (right, I need betareaders for all of my messily done stories) but anyway, if you haven't noticed, this is inspired by the song "Pompeii", and, ironically, little children. DOn't ask._**

**_Well, anyway, please enjoy and cope with my cryptic riddles & metaphors. _**

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><p><em>He looks down at his feet, startled to see the ground far beneath the ledge he is standing on. The cliff-top is precariously thin, but Zane stands there without fear all the same, and he raises his crystalline gaze up to glimpse a city, a beautiful city with high walls nestled into the hills beside a lush mountain. The walls are high, casting long shadows in the dying sunset, illuminated by the rich coral hue that reflects in the clouds and fills the sky. It's filled with beauty and color, both the mountain and the city, but in one moment that all changes.<em>

_Fire explodes with a mighty roar, opening its hungry maw to the city, tongues of liquid rock and flame exploding from the mountain and landing among the beautiful city, licking at it within its walls, trapping it, devouring it as he stands far away, shell-shocked. Something moves in front of him, just slightly beneath him and Zane starts. Looking down, he sees a girl below him. She stands on yet another ledge; soot streaks her face and clothes and hair, and when she turns to look at him it's almost like Zane isn't there. She gazes beyond him, away from the city, to the night that creeps closer with every second, its arms carrying darkness and light and its skies illuminated with the fire that explodes up now from the city. He knows it is a place she knows well now, and as she turns away it all changes._

_The walls surrounding the beautiful city are charred and blackened, but the sky is now clear with dawn and filled with pale shades of amaranth and persimmon and light clouds drift silently above them. Zane looks down to see she is gone. In the distance, a girl's figure is silhouetted by the morning light, walking towards the burned metropolis. He watches her as she approaches the smoking ruins slowly, and even from the distance he can see her raise an arm to the sky. For what, he is not sure, but as he zooms in with his close-up vision - being a nindroid has its advantages - he barely glimpses her before she dissolves, her form just dissipating in the wind. As the last traces of pale color fade from the place she once stood, a cracking sound fills the air, and even at a distance like Zane's he hears the walls cracking, he sees the stone barrier fold in on itself and great clouds of dust and soot roil up in angry clouds and break apart, as if it was dependent on the girl to stand, lines of fate spun into one thread._

_And it falls._

Zane's icy blue eyes snap open, his pale cherry-blossom-pink lips opening in a silent gasp as he gazes at his surroundings. He is not standing in a burning city, he is not perched on his ledge watching it burn; he sits in the meditation room on the Bounty's Destiny, his legs crossed and hands folded neatly in his lap.

For just a brief moment to Zane, the medium-sized room feels claustrophobic to him. He stands up, pushing the paneled door out of his way and leaves, stepping onto the deck on the Bounty. The cool air blows against his face as the Bounty sails soundlessly through the pale dusk. Zane savors it, enjoying the feel of the chilling breeze when he realizes; he's never been claustrophobic before.

With a sigh, he shakes his head before re-entering the meditation room.

Maybe this time, he won't be disturbed.

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><p>Zane opens his crystalline eyes once more, this time blinking calmly at the sight of the meditation room; no dreams or ominous visions came to him the second time, although he can tell he's meditated for far longer than he intended to. When he had sat down after the first bout of disturbed prowess, he reflects, he'd closed his eyes and found his mind consumed by his strange vision. He'd <em>felt <em>what the girl had felt, the love for her city and her care and anguish when it had all fallen down in ashes upon ashes upon ashes, charred heaps of rubble and soot. He'd envisioned himself walking through the wreckage, watching the last of embers gutter and flicker out, all the time wondering how this could _be_ real. It couldn't be real. So why did it feel real, the girl and her love and care for the city and the way he felt?

This could not be real.

It is only then that his internal clock kicks in, notifying him with a _ping _soundless to others that it is far past dinner-time and it was his turn to cook. Muting another sigh, he gets up, ignoring the sharp prick of discomfort of his limbs from sitting in his position too long. Zane leaves the meditation room yet another time, where he is greeted by a irritated Cole who notified him it_ was _his turn to cook and no, they didn't need food anymore as Sensei graciously agreed to stop at a pizza-place. The snowy ninja pays Cole no heed at all - which is out-of-character for him - and instead brushes past him to their room, where he proceeds to open his chest-panel and examine each and every one of his switches and wires to ensure there was no malfunction. When he is satisfied, he clicks the exterior panel shut and rises again, this time uncertain of what he means to do.

He realizes doing something has cleared his mind just the slightest, and that is when he becomes aware that the girl on the ledge beneath him, the one with the glassily vacant stare was different from the girl who had vanished into the wind, the walls falling and tumbling down in her wake.

_Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. _Somehow the quizzical nursery rhyme works its way into Zane's quick and clever mind, and his brow furrows in just the slightest as he thinks over the child's chant from a childhood he'd never had. _Ashes_. Similar to soot, similar to the mistily opalescent wisps of fine light the phantom figure by the walls had dissolved into. He can't remember any of her features, just a wispy glow that she radiated, different from the one on the ledge.

The girl he had seen, the girl with soot in her hair and on her face with her glassily vacant stare was someone he knew very well.

Zane gets up suddenly, the floorboards creaking in protest under his feet as he jumps down from the top bunk he had sat on to examine his interior circuts. He ignores their squeak, however, and brushes out the door towards the room of one he'd seen in his vision, one who'd been gone for many hours now.

The sound of his knuckles on wood seems loud in the deathly silence that has presided through the hallway since morning, and the creak of the door seems even louder as it slowly opens. "Zane?" Kai asks, even though he sees the nindroid clearly. Zane nods patiently in response, an unsaid request to enter still hanging in the air. Kai frowns just the slightest. "I don't think so," He says, catching onto the obvious. "She's in a some sort of coma or trance, some sort of delicate phase. I've had to chase Jay away six times in the last ten minutes already." Zane opens his mouth to object, that he has more medical knowledge than the fiery ninja, but Kai cuts him off; but before Kai closes the door on him he catches a glimpse of her face as she rolls over. Nya's expression is serene yet vacantly hollow.

Almost like she's in another world.

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><p><strong><em>Um, lame ending, just like last time? But anyway, please R&amp;R with feedback. Got any criticism? Bring it, 'cause personally I prefer criticism (constructive or not) over nice reviews (though I cherish those more). They just help me improve in my writing.<em>**

**_About betareaders; they are people who look over your work pre-publish and make recommendations, suggestions, and edits & corrects any errors, etc. _**

**_Roulette fanfics sound pretty fun too (basically a collab fic) so I'd love to do one with anyone that's interested. (Drop me a PM if you are, will ya?)_**

**_Again, don't forget to R&R, and have a nice rest of your day._**


	3. Walls

**_Uh, here's the third chapter. I had quite a bit of writer's block, so oops? Here goes._**

**_Forcing yourself to write isn't the best way, but I got my edge back at the end. Hope you enjoy._**

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><p><em>The sound of cracking surrounds Cole as he stands in the middle of what appears to be a city of stone, dust and soot rising in great puffs as the buildings around him crumble with jarring creaks and shrieks of stone against stone, roaring thuds pounding in his ears as he finds it in him to run, turning away to his back and it's all the same, walls and walls and walls tumbling down, trapping him.<em>

_He blinks rapidly to clear away the dust, desperately trying to formulate his plan when a thought crosses his mind - where was everyone else? Cole looks around wildly, but he sees no one in sight, and something about it tells him only he is here. His worries are interrupted, however, when a crackling sound captures his attention and he jumps, turning to see just the tip of a longer finger of fire as it reaches above, leaving a trail of smoke. A scream resonates through the hollow city, and Cole instantly begins running towards the source of the sound, through a maze of caving alleys and crumbling streets, but he sees no one._

_Until a figure streaks by him, just rustling his hair by the wind left in its wake, and something seems familiar to Cole. He starts after the phantom, but is halted by a sharp crack and he jumps back, a sharp slab of stone landing in front of him. He bites back a sigh of relief. If he'd kept on going, he would've been crushed, but a sudden breeze - was it even a breeze? - swishes past him and he looks up to see a feminine figure of light as she slowly approaches him, seeming to hover above the ground as she nears the earth ninja. He can't see the girl well enough through the wall of fire that has flared up from nowhere, but her figure is a faint silhouette as a comet of light and flame streaks out of the mountains, towards him, coming closer, closer, closer ..._

Cole jerks up, lifting his head out of papers and cookbooks. (Yes, cookbooks.) He blinks wearily, his silver-grey eyes flitting around the room until landing on the large, circular window that's in the bridge when it hits him; he's fallen asleep at a table, in the noon-time. Rubbing his forehead, he steads up, trying to figure out what he'd been doing before _that_ happened, but when he tries to recall all he can come up with is ... nothing.

"Cole, are you okay? You seem pretty tired this morning." He looks up, expecting to see Nya at the wheel, but instead Lloyd stands there, bringing the Bounty's safe passage.

"A-am I really that ob-bvio-ous?" He asks, yawning. Cole stretches, and as he hastily clambers to his feet he stumbles forward and knocks the table over, moving with none of the silent grace the ninja usually possess. His muscles ache as he stretches, sending excruciatingly painful _twangs _through his body as he stretches. "Where are the others?" He cracks his neck as he asks this, wincing; Cole's body feels like it's been steamrollered and then trampled by a herd of angry Serpentine.

"Dunno," The child-turned-teenager replies serenely, his voice aligning in an ambient way with the tranquil atmosphere that has prevailed over the Bounty. "They're all doing their own thing. I was bored, so I came up here to practice steering. Might help me with the Ultra-dragon."

_Good luck with that, _Cole thinks with a smile, recalling Lloyd's somewhat disastrous performance in the NinjaBall Run. He pushes the door open with his shoulder, slipping outside onto the deck where the hot noontime sun beats down on him. The earth ninja looks around, expecting to see at least one person up and about, but it's blankly empty. With a sigh, Cole crosses the thick wooden planks and enters the lower deck of the Destiny's Bounty, popping his head in each room. He sees Zane meditating, Jay nervously tinkering, Kai furiously training on the indoor course, but no trace of Sensei. No trace of Nya, either, but she was probably in her room. Kai hadn't let anyone in since yesterday; Cole still has no idea why.

Sure enough, when he passes her room, he hears rhythmic, soft breathing. The thought only briefly crosses his mind on _why _Nya is sleeping in - she never sleeps in - but he dismisses it. However, when he continues to check the Bounty's rooms - he wants to speak with Sensei about that dream - he finds nothing, and as he doubles back he pops his head in the meditation room. "Hey, Zane," He asks the snowy ninja. "Have you seen Sensei?" Zane's crystalline eyes open slowly, and he shakes his head once before closing them again, returning to his meditation.

Cole suppresses a sigh, of what, he's not sure, but he repeats the process with Jay. Well, he attempts to. When he passes the room the blue ninja was working in, he finds that Jay has passed out on his latest invention and has his face buried in a pile of nuts and bolts. At this, Cole's mouth tugs upwards into a smirk; he looks as Cole though he would've when he'd fallen asleep at the table in the bridge. Regardless, he quietly closes the door and continues down the hall.

"Kai," he says, leaning into the training room where Kai's still working. "Have you seen Sensei?" Cole pauses. "Or Nya?"

Kai stiffens. "No, I haven't," He snaps back. "And, if you didn't know, Nya's in some sort of coma."

Cole wisely retreats from the training room. "Someone's on a short fuse," he mutters, although he knows it's just like Kai. The fire ninja's words send his mind reeling immediately, though, once he steps recalls the fiery brunet's words. _Nya's in some sort of coma. _At first, Cole was sure he was just kidding in some bad-tempered way, but as he thinks through Kai's words he realises it all aligns.

He brushes that off - not with ease, but he manages as he strides through the Bounty. He needs to find Sensei right now, have a talk of guidance with him, clear his head, before finding some way to help her. He pauses at the bridge's door, his hand still raised in a knock undone when he decides against it. Cole slides through the gap left in the door to ask the only person left who may know where his uncle is - Lloyd - but when he takes a look, the room is strangely empty. The door to Sensei's room, however, is ajar, and as he pokes his head through - he's not really supposed to go in there - he sees Lloyd just gaping, gaping in shock at the floor, where

a broken teapot lies.

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><p><em><strong>Don't forget to R&amp;R. I need feedback.<strong>_

_**R&R. MUsT i sAY mOrE?**_

_**pLeASe. nEeD fEEdBaCK.**_


	4. Circumstances

_Clouds. Grey. Jay raises his head cautiously, removing his knotted hands from over his neck as he slowly straightens his spine to see a charred and crumbling ruin in sharp contrast to the stone city he had seen mere moments earlier, if not only for a few seconds. Billowing clouds, roiling with thunder and crackling with electricity not unlike that of which he commands, drifts over his head, as the occasional roar of the incoming storm echoes through the skies. His sapphire-blue eyes dart warily around the smoking ruin, puffs of dust still adrift and floating and obscuring parts of his vision - which really wasn't helping at the time - as he swiftly scans his surroundings, tensing, preparing to run. His hands flutter briefly behind his back, only to find the absence of his nunchucks, and panic sets in._

_Almost as if an invisible hand had commanded them, the clouds instantaneously roll across the already-dark skies, casting great shadows upon the barren land as fire begins to rain down - how does that happen? Jay wonders - setting the ground alight, blazing clumps of fire and wafting smoke filling the air. Strangely, though, he feels safe in the certain doomsday, and Jay knows he will not be harmed; it's as if an individual, invisible presence - or multiple, perhaps? - shields him from the flames, and when he looks up, he sees an apparition of light floating serenely above him, palms extended. From the pale shape of shimmering light, he makes out long strands of hair and a more feminine figure, determining it is a girl, and he reaches up to touch her form, to see if she's real, but as he does she dissolves._

_He draws his hand back in shock, but it soon fades and he begins walking through the smoke and flame again, beneath the dark skies. Although he can't see his guardian anymore, he can still sense her presence - and another, he realizes. Looking up, he glimpses a slender form alongside another, appearing to be wearing something on his head, and in his subconscious mind he can tell they are familiar. Breaking into a run, he draws nearer to them, and as Jay does he sees black hair and brown eyes, white hair and golden eyes and a straw hat; he yells, but no sound comes out, and they begin to turn away. Their names, on the tip of his tongue, are forgotten, but their faces achingly, achingly familiar, but all he can do is stand and watch as they turn away and the clouds mill above him with angry roars, casting the daylight land into a night of fire, fire, fire ..._

Jay's head jerks up, his blue eyes blinking with a mixture of drowsiness and shock as he sits up straighter, rubbing his eyes with the back of his grease-smudged hand and stretching until his mind draws up the pieces of his dreams again and he stiffens, muscles taut. They are hazy, but his conscious, sharpened by his awakening, slowly stitch together the frazzled pieces. "Nya," he breathes, closing his vibrant blue eyes. "Sensei."

_What were they doing there?_

Unsure, he rises to his feet, stretching out his sore back, aching from hunching over too long, and rub the back of his neck. His fingers tingle as the circulation begins to speed up again in them, and he sighs. Better catch some real sleep, in a real bed, in the real room belonging to the ninja. As his fingers brush the doorknob, he glances back - the retractable wings would have to wait for another day when he was willing to work on them. Go figure.

Stepping outside, closing the door quietly behind him, he yawns and makes his way down the hall to his room. As he passes the hall leading out onto the deck, he pops his head outside and breathes deeply once, twice, thrice, feeling the cool, fresh air flow back into his lungs and his mind becoming more lucid. Jay runs a hand through his auburn hair, over his forehead, before he steps outside. What was the point of trying to sleep, now, when he was wide awake?

He warily steps onto the deck of the Bounty, feeling the cool skyward air and wind blow against his face in a rejuvenating manner, savoring the clarity of mind before he tentatively walks across the deck (the Destiny's Bounty has a certain habit of lurching and swaying in the sky during turbulence). Thankfully, though, he makes it across and slips into the bridge, only to find the screen door to Sensei's room askew and Lloyd and Cole simply standing, gaping, gaping in shock at the floor where fragments of fine blue china lay, the legacy of their sensei in a shattered teapot strewn across the ground.

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><p>The words escape his mouth before he registers them, sentences and phrases jumbled together in a nonsensical mess that somehow brings Kai and Zane running to the room as well, weapons out and poised, before Jay knows it. Only when he notices Zane's cool, calming touch does he snap his mouth shut and take a deep breath, uttering merely one intelligible sentence. "<em>What happened?<em>"

In response, it blows up.

Kai, blade drawn, yelling; Cole, brow furrowed, plan in-the-making; Zane, systems running, analytics spilling out of his mouth; Lloyd, desperately trying to soothe the commotion; and himself, jabbering away again - at what, even he didn't know. Their voices, blending, rising, in a chaotic turmoil for whoever knows how long, went on, on, _on ..._

"_Silence._"

Strangely, at this, the room indeed falls silent, heads turn, in attempts trying to identify who had spoken. Eyes met eyes, but it was obvious that none of the ninja had said that one, halting word; it wasn't even a masculine voice that had said what silenced. Hearts beating, loud in ears - deafening silence filled the room as they stared at the small point of light pulsating over the broken teapot, shining, contracting, giving out an irresistible tug of curiosity. They simply stare at it as it dissolves into fainter lines of light, a fine weaving twisting, pulling itself together.

In its place hovers the hazy apparition of a young woman, the colors of her hair and skin and dress faded in the vibrant glow of her own presence. Her eyes, eyes masked by pure light, appear to glow white, although the four somehow know those are not her true eyes. She gazes at the ninja, slowly extending her palms in a gesture, a gesture interrupted by Kai. With a mad yell, the hotheaded ninja jumps forward, bringing his blade through her form in a blow so swift and powerful the whistling of air against his sword resonated throughout the room.

Silence met it, but the girl, unfazed, uninjured, simply looks down upon Kai. In the wavering light, she appears timeless, but her voice was not much deeper than a young child's. She tilts her head, giving them a somewhat eerie, disconnected smile that was clearly not genuine. In a gentle wave of her hands, she reappears, again, far closer to the five teenage boys than they would like - mere feet, in fact.

"_Ninja,_" she states, "_I seek your service._"

It was met with a subtle but obvious tensing, hands tightening on handles, blades, hands flying to belts and backs and gripping their weapons, eyes narrowing. The ninja, wary, unsure of the stranger, survey her cautiously. Although she didn't appear as much, they knew better; things weren't always as they appeared. However, none chose to break the standstill of silence; not until Cole steps forward.

In a firm, strong voice, he challenges her. "And why would we work for you?"

The girl tilts her head again, in an inquiring manner lingering on mockery. "_Oh?_" At this, a subtle smirk crosses her face, masking something else - he couldn't quite tell what it was. But, again, he couldn't tell who she was; although the girl did look familiar in some way. Cole brushes it off. She couldn't be trusted - his though was confirmed, too, at her next statement. "_A few people you may care for, ah, may be elsewhere, no? I have ways to bring them back to you._"

Lloyd's emerald eyes, Kai's amber eyes, widen.

"You have Nya!"

"You have Uncle!"

The girl merely nods. "_And I can give them back to you; and you can't give them back to yourselves._" For the first time, she looks at them with scorn and contempt - for what, none of them knew. "_I've had quite enough of your nonsense. I want an answer. What will it be, ninja?_" Her eyes, eyes previously veiled by light, begin to show through, and she brings her hand over her face once, replenishing the heavy mask of the glow before they glimpse her true gaze.

Zane steps forward, a challenge in his cool, velvety tone. "We'll do it," he says firmly before the others could register. "But," he continues. "Tell me, what made you think we would?"

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><p><em><strong>gASP oKAY WHAT DO YOU THINK<strong>_

_**I would appreciate a review or two.**_

_**Oh, and shoutout to the loyal & amazing ABCSonicKirbyWarriors just because. **_


	5. are we?

_The sensation of drowning in water: the sensation of dancing in fire: Lloyd bites his lip to keep from crying out in the utter discomfort, digging his fingernails into his palms and closing his emerald-green eyes in an attempt to battle the nausea—it was futile, but when he opens them warily again he finds the vexations gone. His feet, perched on solid ground, is a great relief to the green ninja, but nothing else is in that moment. As he looks up, he glimpsed the goddess-like deity again, her gaze fixed firmly on him. "Green Ninja," she addresses him formally, but her tone is denouncing and her gaze neutral, lacking of wonder or respect. "This is my trial to you. Shall you pass, you shall be reunited with your team, but shall you fail—well, then you'll see, no?" A slight smile tugs at her lips, a cold, forced smile of formality and mockery._

_Lloyd stands up, squaring his shoulders and glaring defiantly back at her. "Fine, then," he snarls, glancing around. The world, the terrain that stretches out for endless miles until the horizon is a mass, a ruin, a smoldering wreck that reeks like burned flesh and bone, of acrid smoke and things unraveled and fallen, undone. "Is your face, your soul, and your mind as ugly as this world?" he asks suddenly, the sharp-tongued remark jumping out of his lips. The goddess' face, masked by the light into a timeless facade, a generic, indescribable charade, moves again as it twists into—not an ugly—but far from beautiful expression, her glowing eyes narrowing and her lips pressed together in a cool line, like a vain attempt to smile and scowl._

_"You don't know, now, do you?" she snaps back at him, her face finally contorts into a snarl—but of pain and loss, not cruelty—that Lloyd doesn't notice, for his eyes are already scanning the horizon. Obviously he is ready for the task, but not to listen or think. She sighs, flicking her hand. In an instant, the strange realm around him morphs into one of a beautiful city, nestled in lush hills beneath an amaranth-and-persimmon sky of dawn. "Run through my City. Make it through, without distractions, before it comes down on you." The goddess turns away, but before she does she takes a final glance at him. "I wish you luck, Hero."_

_With that, the world around Lloyd fades into nothing, a blank white nothing: he steels himself for the water-and-flame sensation but it instantly subsides, leaving him in the middle of the glorious city. "Well," the teenager tries to console himself, "This can't be that hard."_

_He sets off at a rather quick pace, letting his instincts guide him, his feet pushing off against the paved streets—they are paved with so many different things—of bone, of gemstone, of stone, of glass and porcelain and of so many different, different things, so bizarre and different but strangely beautiful. Lloyd closes his viridescent eyes, inhaling deeply to the sweet and tangy, warm and salty, exotically fresh aromas wafting from each and every corner of the strange new city, until he hears voices. Looking up, he glimpses a black scale—a blue scale—a golden scale, a scaly tail—into the full body of a Serpentine general._

_ "Skales?" Lloyd exclaims in shock. __But the bluish snake doesn't reply: instead, he slithers towards him. _

_Instinctively, the blonde spins at him in his tornado of Spinjitzu, but he passes directly through him and emerges being him. Skales didn't take notice—he was hissing commands to his side, to professedly an invisible or imaginary figure—"No, that ssssssshan't work, Ssssssselma,"— until he makes out the palest pink outline of another Hypnobrai soldier, and, behind him, many others. They pass directly through Lloyd, leaving him bewildered, but the soldiers didn't seem to notice at all. The green ninja was utterly disturbed, so, taking to last resort, he runs._

_Down the street he, in his wild flight, traverses, not slowing nor taking heed to the glorious empire he travels anymore, until he hears a strangely familiar voice. It wafts out of an open window, and he, intrigued, follows it to the first-story of a building. He glances in the little shutters, and what he sees shocks him: Kai, Jay, Zane, and Cole sit around a television, their golden weapons, GOLDEN WEAPONS, strewn around the room, laughing at some video game. With another start, Lloyd sees the walls and decorations of those of the Monastery—"that can't be right," he says to himself, but as he glances around outside and inside again it's apparent that a paradox is occurring but it is there all the same—and he looks back in again. What were they doing? He was just about to go in and ask until it clicks; their suits look different they still have their golden weapons, and they look far less mature and more arrogant, and as he looks closer their forms and belongings are translucent._

_So he runs, runs in his wild flight and flees what appears to be ghosts of the past._

_He runs._

_Until he hears a set of voices, a set of voices that throw him into furry visions, faded visions of a brown-haired woman and a brown-haired man leaning over him, pride and love in their crimson and emerald eyes, their voices melding as one into an "I love you, Lloyd," and in that instant something inside of him snaps, breaks, for he knows that those voices, those voices over there are people he loved—loves—dearly. But he can't help but run, run, run towards them until he skids to a halt out of breath, a few blocks away in the majestic city—and lo and behold, there he sees them!—gazing out at a young couple, their faces clear of wrinkles and their eyes bright and happy, sitting in a chair and lying on a bed in the middle of the street, forms flickering, the woman holding a small bundle of cloth. "We'll name him Lloyd," she says to the man, and he nods. The woman's lips quirk up into a lovely smile, her olive skin regaining some of its lost color. "Lloyd," she coos. "Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon." With a nod, the man also begins to smile. "Garmadon," she says to him. "Don't you think it's a wonderful name for our little boy?"_

_And Lloyd, despite his new age of being a teenage boy, begins to cry, silent tears streaming down his face from his wide green eyes._

_In that moment, the buildings disappear and in he sees every, every single soul, every apparition so much like and unlike that goddess, all from his life—the boys at Darkley's, young and happy, Wu, Nya, and many more; even the candy shop manager, and he drops to his knees. "What..." he breathes. "What in the world?" But there is no response for him, not until the ground begins to shake, the buildings, appearing again, begin to rumble, and the sky, once the beautiful midway hues of blue and amaranth, begins to darken. Clouds stream over Lloyd's head, converging into one heavyset mass that roils and rumbles with thunder and lightning as fire begins to flare, from the mountain, from the sky, into the city, the putrid scents of burnt flesh and bone and ash drifting towards Lloyd._

_He lifts his head, swiping the sleeve of his green gi over his face, opening his emerald orbs again only to glimpse a bright flash of red—"Kai?" he exclaims, unsure—flapping in the winds, and untidy tufts of brown hair milling about. Upon his back is an intricate golden blade, and he is solid, unlike the city of illusions. Lloyd breaks into a run, towards the red ninja, until he realizes that he isn't getting any closer and that Kai's strange realm bears a stark contrast to his. He stands, facing a dying sunset, watching a lone girl's figure on a ledge. _

_Lloyd opens his mouth to shout to him, but as he does Kai takes a step and vanishes, appearing a few moments later with his back to the falling sun, gazing at the strange girl with amber eyes, amber eyes clouded with curiosity. The fire ninja reaches out, tentatively, with a hand, but as he does the girl turns suddenly to look at Lloyd's part of the fallen city, looking at Lloyd, looking through Lloyd as if he wasn't there. Her lips are parted slightly, but she as she watches the flaming city tears begin to roll down her face and drip down her chin, and her mouth opens, as if to say something, but then she screams. She screams out of pain and loss, all the while the fire, the soot, the ash, raining down, down, down, the legacy drifting, drifting, drifting away._

_And it rains. As it does, the girl, the girl and Kai vanish, their sunset vanishing, replaced by more of the flaming city._

_With a shocked gasp from his own lips, Lloyd stares at the spot they disappeared at for a moment before turning away. His heart beats loudly, echoing in his ears, but he ignore it. Shifting his feet, he realizes he can move to places again and at once takes off in a fast sprint, away from where he stood. As he runs, he hears a creaking and many thuds, and he looks back to see the place where he stood falling in, into itself. Lloyd turns his head back towards his path when he glimpses a patch of clear ground, and beyond that, a cliff-top, close to the mountain. Upon that perches a slender figure dressed in white, and with a closer look he takes a stab at who they are. "Zane?" the green ninja whispers in surprise._

_Suddenly, he feels his feet, his legs, stop and snap to the ground, his body immobilized as he watches Zane. His movements are graceful and lucid, and his composure gentle but alert, tensing more as something in front of the white ninja moves, turning to look at him—it's a girl, a petite girl with short black hair and a dirtied red dress, but as she turns to look at him their background changes and she vanishes. The dark sky behind him is replaced with the one of a beautiful persimmon dawn, identical to the one Lloyd witnessed upon his arrival. As it shifts, morphs, so does the outer part of the city, the beautiful bordering walls, undamaged by the flames, cracking; the city, once smoldering, changes into one of a charred ruin. A girl, another girl, stands, watching the remains, and she raises her hand to the sun for a brief moment before dropping it back to her thigh. Her form dissipates almost instantly, and as it does, the walls, the buildings, crack, crack, crack, the walls, the walls, tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down._

_And it falls. As it does, the girl and Zane vanish, their dawn vanishing, replaced by more of the flaming city._

_Backing up, Lloyd turns and runs, runs, runs so he will not get caught in the next phenomenon, the next fluke. His breaths come in short, ragged, gasps, but he pushes on, running at maximum speed away, away from the strange sites and away, away from what he saw. He wasn't sure how long he had ran, only that he had cleared a great distance; Lloyd allows himself to stop, to heave breaths of smoky air into his burning lungs. When he raises his head again, straightening his spine, he glimpses a flash of gold from a scythe's blade, the stone towers that signify the urban area of the city, a flicker of shaggy black hair as a lithe, muscular boy dressed in black flashes past him. "Wait!" the green-eyed ninja calls out, but the teen doesn't: he continues to run at his mad pace, twisting out of sight. Lloyd starts after him, slowed by his fatigue, but even so he finds himself slowly closing the distance. "Cole!" he calls. "Wait! Wait!"_

_Out of nowhere, the black ninja halts, jumping back as a deafening crack sounds and a large slab of stone slams down in front of him. Great puffs of soot and dust float up as more buildings crack, slowly crumbling, crumbling into pebbles and rocks. He lets out a faint sigh of relief, only to stiffen again as heavier, louder cracks echo through the half-destroyed plaza, the very earth shaking, flames billowing up from whichever way. Fire, fire explodes from the mountains and ground, falling down, down from the sky and setting what he knows alight. Cole yelps, jumping back as a ball of flame careens mere yards away from him, but as the black ninja begins to relax again faint footsteps carry to him through the commotion and he narrows his eyes, glimpsing a feminine shape striding towards the Master of Earth through the smoke and flame._

_And it is lost, again, as a mass of fire as big as the sun begins falling, falling, falling, closer, closer, closer ..._

_White, faded white, filled his vision, but at once it quickly cleared to leave Lloyd standing in more city, more smoldering, burning city. He sighs a weary sigh; his legs and arms ache, and each breath in through his lungs is like a thousand daggers into his chest. Without his permission, his knees give way, and he catches himself on his hands—the dirt and gravel, the burning embers, send searing pain through his palms but he refuses to care, closing his green eyes and taking deep, deep breaths trying to regain his equilibrium. The world spins around him, so dizzily that Lloyd feels as if he will be sick. But as soon as it strikes him, it vanishes, fresh energy flowing through his limbs as he hauls himself to his feet, only to glimpse another, another young man in an electric-blue gi rise as well, his auburn hair ruffled slightly in the winds. The teenager's sapphire eyes are both wary and curious, a look belonging to only one ninja: Jay._

_Jay it is, as he turns his head rapidly from side to side as he sees the dark clouds that billow menacingly across the skies in critical turmoil, their depths harnessing the thunderous tremors and crackling electricity of the blue ninja's element. His head turns in several directions, one after the other, out of curiosity—and probably some other reasons—but it is satisfied by the queer occurrence that follows it; fire—or perhaps not so much to Lloyd. The green ninja decides he has seen enough flames for one day, but it doesn't stop him from watching in horror and bated breath as clumps of flame begin pelting down around Jay, but the blue ninja doesn't seem to be disturbed. Instead, he seems merely intrigued, raising a hand to touch something nonexistent above him—only does when Lloyd squint his emerald eyes does he see a ripple in the air, a shimmering shape that vanishes in a mere second, and the blue-eyed ninja withdraws his hand to look off into the distance only to glimpse something that makes him start. The green ninja, too, narrows his eyes, and what he sees shocks him._

_But it is lost, once more, as the dark clouds swamp the daylight land, drawing it in to a night of fire, fire, fire ..._

His lips, parted, let out a stifled gasp; his eyes, viridescent eyes, flutter open; his spine straightens and he sits up to find the concerned faces of four ninja staring back at him. Lloyd rubs a hand over his bleary eyes, but that isn't needed—sharp, cool winds bite at his cheeks, startling him and waking him up. He stretches his taut muscles, examining his limbs to find the absence of the many scratches and burns he acquired throughout his ordeal, only to find them gone; the sharp, throbbing pains still remain to his discomfort. His gaze is still slightly blurred, but his mind is lucid enough to comprehend their foreign surroundings.

"Guys ..." he mumbled, his voice muted and further stripped away by the vicious gales of wind. "I don't think we're in Ninjago anymore."

* * *

><p><strong><em>Hnnnghhhh!1 !<em>**

**_hehe, never mind that. what did ya think? _**

**_'toto, i don't think we're in kansas anymore." can we just_**


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